Page 78 of The Lady Plays with Fire

She wasn’t wrong, though he would not have balked at a more thorough kiss.

He stood, slipped off the sling, and half stumbled toward the bed.

“Ought I to help you with that, first?” She gestured with the waggle of a finger toward his lower half.

It took a long moment for him to realize she was referring to removing his kilt. “Nay.” He climbed onto the mattress and slid beneath the cool linens as another wave of fatigue washed over him. “I’ll just . . .”

Sleep—and whatever the physician had given him for the pain—weighed on his eyelids, dragging them lower. She smiled as she drew the covers over him and then turned away, as if intending to return to the chair. With his good hand, he patted the empty expanse of bed beside him.

“Graham,” she chided. “I couldn’t possibly. You need your rest.”

“And I’ll have it,” he vowed. “But I’ll rest better if you’re here, rather than all the way over there.”

She shook her head, her mobile mouth caught between disapproval and amusement. Then, with a sharp sigh, as if she couldn’t quite believe her own actions, she pulled a few pins from her gown—“wouldn’t want to be poked”—and clambered onto the bed to curl up at his side. “Now, go to sleep.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

He woke again as the first gray hint of dawn was streaking the sky, both surprised and relieved to find that Julia was still tucked against him, in the shelter of his good arm. Her dark locks hid her face and tickled his chin; her left arm was flung across his torso and her fingers spread possessively over his heart. Just as he’d hoped—nay, dreamed—the delicate ring perfectly suited her hand.

He dragged in a deep breath, unable to recall the last time he’d awoken feeling so content. As if all was right with the world. His hand still throbbed, it was true. And a good night’s sleep hadn’t cleared his thoughts of the doctor’s grim warnings about the threat of infection and permanent disability.

It had increased his determination to triumph over his injury, however. He tried to waggle his fingers and sucked in a breath at the pain even that slight movement produced.

But pain, he reasoned, was better than no feeling at all.

“Graham?” Julia stirred against his shoulder, swiped her hair away from her face, and looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Are you all right?”

“Aye. I will be. And so will you—and all of Mrs. Goode’s Misses, thanks to that timely knock on Fanshawe’s head, and whatever additional punishment your brother and stepfather managed to exact after they consigned me to the physician.”

Confusion flickered across her eyes. “That’s good news, isn’t it? Yet you look a trifle . . . disappointed.”

“Aye, well. A Scotsman likes to be the one to save his lass.”

Her head tilted in a charming scold. “Graham. That madman had a knife at my throat. You are the one who saved me. And not just through your brave actions, but through even braver words. For my sake, you revealed one of your most deeply held secrets to all of London society.”

“One?” He arched a brow. “Are there others?”

She nodded. “Who would have suspected the caring man you really are, beneath that scowling mask.” Then, sliding higher along his body, she pressed a string of kisses along his jaw. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

He turned and captured her mouth with his, seeking the kiss she’d denied him last night. Lips softly parted, she surrendered to his demand.

Or perhaps surrendered wasn’t quite the right word. Pressing her hand more firmly against his chest, she rose above him, her tongue stroking eagerly into his mouth, her hair tumbling around them like a curtain of brown silk.

“My love?” She drew back, nibbling her lower lip uncertainly as she rubbed her breasts against him with a becoming urgency. “Are you in a great deal of pain?”

“Oh, aye,” he teased, his breath already ragged.

She pushed herself fully upright, until she was kneeling beside him on the bed. Her blue gaze flickered to his bandages, to the bloodstained shirt he still wore.

“I didn’t mean my hand,” he tried to explain, feeling a fool. “I’m sorry. That joke was unworthy even of Blackadder.”

Though her lips curved slightly, an acknowledgment of his feeble attempt at humor, her eyes darted to his bandaged hand, and a notch formed between her brows. “Will you still be able to write?”

Essex had said a loss of dexterity was likely. Graham dragged in a breath and reached up with his uninjured hand to brush her hair behind her shoulder. “I don’t know.”

Sensing the moment for playfulness had passed, he planted one foot against the mattress to join her in sitting up. Her eyes followed the movement as the linens slipped to bare his leg, the hem of his kilt hiked to mid-thigh.

With one tentative fingertip, she brushed the dusting of coarse hair just above his knee. “I could hold your pen.”